Because of something called a machine learning algorithm, astronomers now may be actually able to take a photograph of a black hole. Developed by MIT researcher Katie Bouman, and her team, the algorithm is able to gather together data from all of the radio telescopes from all over the world. If the concept works, then astronomers and scientists will be able to put together all of the images from all of the telescopes and be able to construct one picture from all of the data. They may actually be able to produce a real photo of a black hole.
Scientists speculate that there is a large black hole lying in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy but they have not been able to see it because it would take a telescope larger than anything that currently exists. In addition, it is 25,000 light years away which is too far out to currently be picked up.
If astronomers had a telescope whose diameter was about the same as Earth’s diameter, then they could photograph it without a problem. That has been the challenge facing the astronomy community. This has been the work of a project called the Event Horizon Telescope which Bouman has been working on with researchers from Harvard. Because of her newly created algorithm, the Event Horizon may be able to assemble an actual photograph from all of the other photographs of that area of space from around the world.
The algorithm will be able to magnify the radio waves from the telescope images and also be able to filter out any interference that tends to accompany such data gathering efforts.
PHOTO CREDIT: Pixabay